


footsteps on oak wood

by chailattemusings



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Gen, body horror cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 16:51:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2857985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chailattemusings/pseuds/chailattemusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirin had lost his own body too many years ago to remember what it looked like, and had settled for living the rest of his days in the Twilight Forest. But a botched summoning by another witch brings him back to the overworld, tripping over his own hooved feet into the face of a strange fox demon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	footsteps on oak wood

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [So I'm the Dragon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2827880) by [chailattemusings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chailattemusings/pseuds/chailattemusings). 



> This is a piece of backstory for my Yogscast Big Bang fic, "So I'm the Dragon." 
> 
> KirinDave has stated that he's all right with Su being featured if she isn't a character in an explicit story. I don't plan to use her character outside this short drabble.

Babysitting demons was not Su's idea of a good time. It most certainly wasn't what she had planned as a new initiate of the Central Circle.

Lying was not prone to _whining_ , per se, but they did cajole her about the need to house the demon somewhere, and how her new house-- that she built with her own two hands and _not_ magic, thank you very much-- would do well enough. Su suggested Lying keep the demon, and Lying spouted something about Circle duties before dumping the demon very unceremoniously on her front lawn. The demon, bigger than a horse and twice as heavy, crushed several of her saplings with his hooves.

Kirin wasn't completely inhuman. He understood language and could answer, in a crude way with motions and a lot of tail whipping, but losing the use of a human mouth meant there was a bit of a barrier. Su spent the days gathering materials and altering spells, working with limited knowledge for this demon who kept lumbering about her house and watching her with seven very sad eyes. Four were on his canine like head, two on his front paws (if they could be called _paws_ ), and one was, disturbingly, placed on the end of his tail, just before black skin branched into thick, feathery fur.

Almost all of the eyes were on her constantly. Kirin had been in the Twilight Forest, or so she and Lying guessed based on the summoning, because they couldn't ask Kirin himself about it. Lying seemed to do better at communicating, but that might have more to do with the super human fox powers than anything else. Being a witch helped in talking to nonhumans, and being part demon helped even further.

Lying had long mastered their demon form, however, and perhaps they saw something of a disaster in Kirin, which was why they'd dumped him on Su. Kirin warranted enough sympathy to get help, just not from Lying themselves.

Growing a corpse took time, and as Su prepared the ingredients for the task, Kirin sniffed around her and watched, muscles tense every time they met eyes (when she met _some_ of his eyes, it would be impossible to look at all of them at once). Su took it in stride despite the occasional nudging of a snout on her lower back, and the fact that growing a human body to serve as a vessel took time and concentration she'd hoped to use in furthering her own magic.

There was a room dedicated to it. Chests were filled with items from witchery, thaum, ars magica, among other sectors of magical practice, and a multiple layered circled with an altar stood in the middle. Su wiped the sweat off her brow after filling yet another chest, putting her hands on her hips. She almost had enough to get started.

Kirin came in, and Su didn't have to turn around, because his claws and hooves pounded across the floor; wood oak, because she didn't have time to find anything better while housing the impatient demon. His nose bumped her upper thigh, before trailing down, inspecting the chalk of the cirle.

“Hey,” Su yelled, and swatted his nose. Kirin growled and drew back, before lowering his tail and curling it around her ankle. That usually meant he was sorry, or that he'd gotten angry without meaning to. Gaining a demonic form granted powers that humans, even human witches, couldn't have, but it could come with prices, like this. Su suspected Kirin hadn't been such an angry creature before he lost himself, as he always gave sweet gestures in apology for losing his temper.

“You're fine,” Su said, petting the long, curved ears at the side of his head, and trailing over the antlers that stuck straight up, spidering into jagged curves, like a solid blue web. It made for a good handle to grab him by, when Kirin acted up. “Don't mess with the chalk,” she continued, giving a gentler swat to the top of his head. “I'm almost ready to start getting you a new body.”

Kirin raised his head, hovering it at her shoulder level, four of his bright blue eyes blinking as he stared at her. “I know,” she cooed, and gave him another pet, before shouldering past his bulk and hurrying down the hallways of her small home. If she wanted the demon out of her hair, she had plenty of work to do, and there was no sense wasting time.

 

* * *

 

Kirin hadn't been human in a very long time.

He couldn't quite remember the circumstances, but it had involved ars magica, a broken wand, and too much lightning. He'd been in the Twilight Forest at the time, and after everything went to hell, he couldn't remember how to make a portal to get back. It involved flowers, somehow, but his front fingers had morphed into something closer to claws, and any attempt to dig up flowers left him with shredded leaves and mud on his skin.

His body had transformed, too. Kirin lost the ability to walk on two legs, the hooves of his feet and the new bone structure unable to support his whole weight for more than a few seconds. He walked on all fours, claws digging in the soft dirt and clacking noisily over stone. His mouth had extended into a muzzle, and between that and the claws, civilized eating turned into a pipe dream.

It took years to get used to it, but he did. He'd grown rather content as a monster in the forest, thin tail swinging in the underbrush, his multiple eyes blinking as they struggled to process more than two viewpoints. He'd never fully slipped into his skin-- black and covered in scales, instead of pink and soft-- but he made do.

Kirin had not foreseen a powerful witch with fox tails.

The ethereal circle had surrounded him before he could escape, and Kirin had hissed at the push and pull of inter dimensional travel, before he'd blacked out and lost sense of where he was entirely. When a few of his eyes could work themselves open, he was staring down a thin, scrappy looking being, with long blond hair and several tails swinging behind them. The witch's hat and robes communicated enough, ringing a familiar bell, and Kirin had stood on shaking legs, bowing his head. He knew a powerful witch when he saw one, even if he couldn't quite remember why he should be cautious.

Lying had been surprisingly good at communication. They couldn't speak demonic languages, exactly, but they garnered more from Kirin's reactions than Kirin expected, and Kirin could still understand English, though he was as surprised to find that out as Lying was. Not long after, Lying had brought them to a small, wooden house, and presented them to Su, another witch.

Su had no traces of heavy magic or demon hood, but she was friendly, and always forgave Kirin when he fell too far into his animal instincts. He did his best not to snoop, although the more he saw of Su's magic, the easier the memories came, the days of spells and books, of enhanced clothing and playing with the elements of the natural and mechanical world. Kirin settled in the corners of the rooms Su worked in, eyes tracking over her work.

It was a few weeks before everything was ready, and even longer as Su took pieces of Kirin's hair and scales to examine them, to put something of his own essence into the new body, so that his demon form wouldn't reject it entirely. It would be hard, she said, to return to a humanoid body, and it might not be permanent. As long as they could make it work, though, Kirin would be able to speak, and then he had a chance of communicating with Su, and talking over their options.

Kirin flexed his claws as he watched Su tending to the corpse that would be his body. There were layers of spanish moss all over the walls, and flowers sprouting through the cracks in the wood, powering the altar in front of her. She stepped back, and gestured to the corpse. It had thick hair, and broad shoulders. “Okay,” she said, and pointed. “Get in the circle.”

Hesitating, Kirin walked toward the center, breathing through his wide nostrils. He'd lived as a demon for too long, and the body in front of him was strange, unfamiliar. It didn't look like _him_. He was Kirin, quadrupedal, with horns and claws and-- nothing _human_. The body laid out before him was not who he was, or who he had been.

A low whine escaped his throat, and Su looked up from the book she was holding, where she had written down the steps for the ritual. “What's the matter?” She followed the gaze of most of his eyes, down to the body. “That's for you,” she said, like he was a child.

Kirin growled low, stamping a paw impatiently on the floor.

Su looked up, brows furrowed. “What, you don't like it?”

Kirin rolled his shoulders and made a sort of clicking noise in his throat.

“Too bad,” Su said, looking back at her book. “I'm not making another one. You'll get used to it, I promise. That is, if you don't bust out of it immediately.”

He would, Kirin knew. That thing, with its pale complexion and soft lips? He'd tear it apart from the inside out. It wouldn't be able to hold his damn horns in, let alone the rest of him. Kirin shifted in the circle, lowering his hips and tilting his head to better watch Su, lifting his tail for the extra gaze of his seventh eye.

She closed the book suddenly, tucking it into her side. “All right, let's get started.” Su emptied her pockets, picking out the ingredients she needed, and threw them in the center of the circle, near Kirin's feet, where he had tucked himself in tightly to fit within the boundaries of the chalk. She took out her wand for good measure, although she didn't use it, waiting for the magic of the altar to take her ingredients and activate the spell she'd put together.

Kirin hissed as they disappeared, one by one, with a thick _shucking_ noise, leaving behind no trace of their existence. There was a loud pop, and a shifting, like grass blades brushing against one another, but multiplied by a thousand. The body at the far edge of the circle convulsed, and Kirin almost bolted, running from the circle to live the rest of his life in his demon body, never to return to human form again, when a heated spike of electricity shot up all four of his limbs.

He cried, loud and screeching, and his back bowed as he absorbed the blow, only for another to follow immediately after. Kirin stumbled, nearly breaking the circle, but firm hands pushed him back into place. Su stood just outside the edges, able to keep Kirin in the boundaries without involving herself in the spell.

There was another pop, and something like an explosion. Kirin tried to open his eyes, as they'd shut somewhere in the process of dealing with the shocks in his body, but all he could see was blackness. There was tight sensation, like his bones were being pinched, and they cracked, breaking in all the wrong places before setting themselves back, twisting with his body to make him smaller, lighter, his body losing mass even as the pain ratcheted so high that Kirin couldn't even breathe.

Somewhere in the background, Su was screaming, in horror or delight, but Kirin couldn't even tell where she was anymore. He couldn't tell where _he_ was, his body stretched and compressed, and his mind worn out from dealing with the sudden change. He'd blacked out, unable to even feel himself blinking, and for a moment, the world didn't exist.

When he came back, his sense of gravity had changed. All his limbs had been forced down and back, rather than resting below him, and it took longer than it should have to flex his muscles.

They weren't moving correctly. His front legs bent upwards, not down, and his knees were too low, pulling up awkwardly close to his torso. Kirin tried to look around, realized his eyes had closed, and opened them. The world was smaller, with a shorter range. He tried to check that all of his eyes were open, and then, his heart beating fast, realized he couldn't even feel his other eyes.

Kirin moved up, flipping from his back to his stomach to crawl onto his legs, and looked down. Instead of black skin and claws, he saw pink, and delicate fingers. But there were too thick to be Su's, and more square. Experimentally, Kirin flexed, and saw the fingers move under his command.

“It worked!”

With a yelp, Kirin spilled onto his side, and looked up, sideways, to see Su standing over him with a grin. “There it is,” she said, and extended a hand. Kirin stared at it, blinking, and reached up. His arms shook, the movement slow and careful, as he took her hand and let her pull him up.

Two legs were _not_ enough to balance on. Kirin grunted and stumbled, but Su caught him, letting out a quiet 'oof' as she held his weight. She steadied him against the wall, and Kirin leaned gratefully on it, panting. He lifted his hands to look at them again, and looked further down to his legs. They were undeniably human, long and pale, with lower knees and ankles than he'd had in the demon form. And he had toes, too. His hooves were gone.

Kirin wiggled them, delighting in the strange sensation of muscles and skin pulling against one another. Su laughed, and he looked up, unable to stop a tentative smile when he saw her own. “You haven't broken it,” she said, “so the body must be acceptable on some level. That's good to know, if we ever have to do this again. Come on.” She waved as she walked toward the door of the room. “Let's get you in some clothes.”

Only then did Kirin feel the air of the room, brushing over bare skin. Kirin padded across the floor after her, not exactly eager for clothes, but hoping for something to replace the fur and scales that he was rapidly missing.

Su took out a wide cloth, that she draped over him, from a chest in her room, prepared for the needs ahead of time, and watched Kirin struggle for a moment between balancing on two shaky legs and dressing himself, before she took it back and yanked the shirt over his head.

Given clothes, a simple shirt and pants, Kirin focused again on his body. It was tight, and unused, and he flexed multiple times to work the muscles. Su patted him down, straightening the clothes and checking his body for any breaks the spell might have caused, before standing with her arms crossed over her chest. “Looks good. How do you feel?”

Kirin opened his mouth, prepared to growl, and startled at the feeling of his jaw moving, how small it seemed now. His throat contracted, and he put a hand over his neck, rubbing it down. There was scratchy blond hair all over his face and under his jaw, and Kirin got distracted itching at it, before he remembered Su's question.

Imitating her seemed the best course of action. Kirin mimed out the words, and put his teeth against his lips, trying out the sounds, before he said, “F-feel,” and coughed, his throat far too dry.

Su's brow softened, and she hurried out with a quick, “Stay here.” When she came back, she was holding a glass of water, and Kirin drank greedily, dropping the cup on the floor and wiping his mouth when he finished. Su clucked her tongue and picked up the cup. “Better?”

Kirin nodded, and paused. “Yes,” he said, slowly, drawing the word out over his tongue. His voice was high for a body so broad and imposing, and he tried again. “Yes, it's better.”

Su beamed, clapping him the shoulder. “You can talk! It's a miracle.”

“Talk,” Kirin said, and shook his head, clearing the confusion and debris as best he could. “Feels strange,” he admitted. “After all this time. It's rough.” Thankfully, in all that time, his mastery of English hadn't faded the way everything else did.

“It will be,” Su agreed, and tucked an arm into his elbow, dragging Kirin from the room. “We have a lot to talk about, though. You'll get used to it in no time.”

Kirin followed without argument, matching three of Su's strides with only two of his, and had to force himself to slow down so as not to overtake her. Su marched them through her house, to the kitchen, and dropped his arm. Kirin stood in the middle of the room, still tensing his muscles to work out the soreness, and watched as Su filled a pot with water and set it atop her furnace, lighting the fire with wood to set it boiling. “Tea is best for sore throats,” she said, turning to him and leaning with her hands on the kitchen counter. “And I imagine that yours is very sore, after who knows how many years spent growling at the creatures in the Twilight Forest.”

Kirin had started scratching at his beard again, and stood straight when Su smiled at him, returning the expression hesitantly. “At least now I can speak to you properly,” he said, rocking a bit on the balls of his feet. “And I won't need to growl, since I no longer have a tail for you to step on.”

Su rolled her eyes. “That was one time, you big baby.”

Kirin couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up, despite the way it scratched at his throat. He hadn't been human in a very long time, but Su made it look easy. The tightness in his muscles and the lack of multiple points of vision could be worth it, if he got to have Su to teach him the ropes.

And if he were lucky, Lying would swing back around to check on his progress. He'd sensed the magic in them from the moment they met, and Kirin was eager to see if he could harness some of that magic for himself. He'd been quite the witch before it all went to hell, and Kirin wouldn't let the loss of his memories and past life stop him from getting back the power he'd had. This time, he would have friends to keep him from stumbling too far over the line, and a new vessel for his demonic powers to channel through.  


End file.
